Category: Deep Posts

This category contains posts (some of which are older) that have value but which might not be as visible to visitors of the site as others.

Bear Stearns and Enron – Learn the Lessons of Diversification

Diversification is talked about quite readily in investing discussions. We all know it’s something very worth applying …

Assessing Your Trading Skills

Here’s the next installment in the trading plan sequence of posts I have been running as excerpted from …

Making Money While Being Wrong Most of the Time

Last week was pretty poor by the standards of the year so far. Among the trading strategies …

Assessing Your Trading Market Knowledge

Here’s the next installment in the trading plan sequence of posts I have been running over the …

Opportunities and Training at Prop Trading Firms

If you were ever wondering about trading for a prop firm, the training offered by those sorts …

Is it still feasible to trade forex?

One of my mailing list members sent me the following inquiry:  Is it still feasible to trade forex …

A Reason to Know Your Broker’s Financial Strength

There’s an article in on the Financial Time’s site that is worth giving a read. It involves …

Recessions and Bear Markets – A Visual Guide

There’s a really neat (to me at least) animated graph which highlights the recessions and stock bear markets …

Trading Bias – Do You Do Better Long or Short?

Do you find that you trade better short than long? Or maybe you trade more profitably long …

Are You Addicted to Trading?

There’s a New York Times article that’s caused some buzz among the trading bloggers today. Naturally, the …

The Superbowl Indicator

I know this might mean a bad year in the stock market for 2008, but I’m pulling …

Take the Trading Long View

One of the most important keys to success in trading is to take the long-run view of …

Practice, Practice, and Practice Some More

A Trade2Win member going by the moniker of bluetipex made posted the following recently in response to an earlier poster …

Which Timeframe Signals Should I Take?

I had an inquiry about trading timeframes yesterday. A new trader was confused about what trading signals …

Yield Curve Madness!!!

I had to share this with you. It’s a snapshot of the US Treasury market as of …

Oh, Woe is Me!

Today was an awful day. Well, sort of. OK. I might be getting a bit dramatic here. …

What Market or Markets do You Trade?

Most traders basically fall into a market when they get started. They generally don’t give it a …

The Dancer Who Made $2 Million Trading Stocks

Someone on one of the forums I visit posted a link to an article about Nicolas Darvas …

Trading Jobs – Making the Transition from a Non-Trading Job

Jobs in trading and the financial markets are the target of many individuals, especially those coming out …

Books on Candlestick Interpretation

I received the following inquiry recently: John, could you recommend a book on candlestick interpretation? It is …

Absolutes in Trading Often Mean Absolute Disasters

One of the things that I’ve learned along the way is to be very careful when anyone …

Trading in a Fog

I’m glad I don’t have to actually do any trading today. Thanks to a late night watching …

Don’t Swing too Hard

Have you ever seen a baseball player swing so hard at a pitch that he lost his …

It’s one thing to know what you should do, another to actually do it.

The following quote from an article on the New York Times web site (Can We Turn Off …

Using Bollinger Bands to Identify Reversal Points

I have used Bollinger Bands in my trading and market analysis for a great many years. In …

Money Management Question

I recieved the following from one of my list members yesterday:  Hi John, The most important question …

Understand from Where Expert Opinions Come

The development and growth of the internet has been a fantastic boon for folks everywhere. Never has …

Can I make X each day/week/month in the markets?

I received the following question yesterday: I am looking for a way to make small amounts of …

Global Daily Trading Schedule

I just had someone point out a really interesting resource. It’s a web page that outlines the …

The value of short-interest

Short interest is an interesting statistic that’s worth understanding. It tells you how many shares of a …

Trading competitions are games, nothing more

This week CNBC kicked off it’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. They’ve put plugging the stock trading competition …

Make sure your instincts match your environment

Well, my time out west is nearly at its end. It’s back to the Northeast first thing …

Accept and recognize your mistakes

One of the things that can cause major problems in your trading is the failure to accept …

Stock market industry sectors and included stocks

I was asked the following question yesterday: “Where can I find a list of the sector indices, …

Fear is healthy, greed is good

In this overly sensitive day and age it is commonly said that in order to get the …

Stop-hunting is NOT the problem some people say

A topic that comes up a lot on forex discussion forums is “stop hunting”, though it isn’t …

Golf and Trading – Learning from Tiger

I’m not a golfer. The extent of my playing has been a whopping total of 9 holes, …

Keep your head from ruining perfectly good trades

I was recently responding to a post on one of the discussion forums I frequent that I …

Taking a closer look at trading system win rate

Yesterday I wrote about the three elements needed to assess and compare trading systems (Thoughts on Trading System …

Thoughts on Trading System Performance

I was recently alerted to some commentary on trading system design and backtesting. That grabbed my attention …

The better you are, the better you want to be

“If you’re any good at all, you know you can be better” – Lindsey Buckingham That’s from …

I admit it. I don’t trade for a living.

I received an email recently from a gentleman who accused me of not really making a living …

It’s OK to be on the sidelines

Keep in mind that you don’t have to trade. Many traders get in trouble because they feel …

Behind the Trade

Excerpt from The Essentials of Trading OK. So we’ve done a trade, but what does that mean? The …

Analysis Pitfalls

(Excerpt from The Essentials of Trading) Back in the chapter on market analysis methods we mentioned the …

Trading Timeframe Assessment

Trading requires time in a couple of ways. The first is the time dedicated to developing a …

Start Trading: Throw the Excuses Out the Window!

People make all kinds of excuses as to why they cannot get involved in investing or trading …